Bright Spot

This last week was an interesting one, to say the least.  On Monday, I received a message on my phone from my doctor indicating that she wanted to go over the results of our ultrasound with me.  I knew that couldn't be good, as I have an appointment this next week with her.  If everything looked normal, wouldn't she just wait to review everything with me?  I anxiously waited as we played a bit of phone tag, and took a deep breath as she told me that the baby was measuring right along with a January 1st due date, but she wanted me to go in for another, more detailed ultrasound as they had noticed a "bright spot" on the baby's heart. She said that a bright spot is fairly common and was most likely nothing, and said I would be getting a call from Maternal Fetal Medicine to set up an appointment.

Of course as soon as I was off the phone with her, I googled "bright spot on baby's heart" to see what that could mean.  Google confirmed what my doctor said... that they find a bright spot on the baby's heart in 3-5% of pregnancies, and that 99 times out of 100, that spot is a calcium deposit that will go away as the baby grows.  But that 1% is what made me anxious - it could be a soft indicator for Down's Syndrome.  I tried to look at the bright side - basically my baby would either have a calcium deposit that would go away, or he could have Down's Syndrome, either of which I could live with (although one would be easier to accept than the other!).  But the bright spot didn't mean that there was an irreparable hole in the heart or something like that.  Needless to say, Monday was a bit of a rough day, and I knew all I could do was wait.

My follow-up ultrasound was Wednesday morning.  I had a hard time even being excited to see pictures of our baby again, because I was so anxious for the results.  The ultrasound tech did detailed measurements, including the distance between the eyes, the length of the nasal bone, etc.  Once she was done, a doctor came in and confirmed that yes, there was a bright spot on the baby's heart (I didn't find this super helpful!). Finally they had me meet with a genetic counselor, who after explaining what the bright spot could be (nothing I hadn't read on google), told me that everything on our baby was measuring normally, and that if I had had my original ultrasound with them, they wouldn't have even mentioned anything to me, as they would have considered the bright spot inconsequential.  At this point, I was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. Of course, there could still be some sort of genetic or chromosomal abnormality, but from everything they saw, our baby seems to be normal and healthy... and still on track to join our family four months from today!

I still marvel at the miracle of pregnancy and birth.  Some days it's hard to believe there is a tiny little baby boy that I am helping to bring into this world (he weighed in at 15 ounces on Wednesday by the way).  I am so thankful to my Father in Heaven for giving us this little blessing, and pray that the pregnancy will continue to go well so that we can welcome a healthy baby boy into our family.